Nizhnevartovsk

Nizhnevartovsk (nyēzhˌnyĭvärˈtəfsk) [key], city (1989 pop. 241,000), N Siberian Russia. The discovery of a huge oil field at nearby Lake Samotlor in 1965 quickly transformed the small village of Nizhnevartovsk into an oil and gas center. The population quintupled in the 1970s as hundreds of thousands of oil workers settled in the region.